“In these type of games, you always want to play, but you have to do better for your team and you have to understand it doesn’t matter who you are, what kind of player,” Kuznetsov added. “You have to understand, ‘Can you help the team or no?’ That’s the biggest part. You have to understand it and you have to communicate with the coaches, doctors and everybody, can you help the team? It doesn’t mean what you want. Sometimes it’s just emotional. You want to play every game, but you have to do what’s best for the team.”

As for whether Kuznetsov will be in the lineup for Game Three, he remained coy.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll see if I’m in, I definitely can help in the morning skate, no?”